A US court has once again denied Apple the chance to ban Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 before the case has fully played out.

The fruity firm tried to get a preliminary injunction against the Android-powered tablets, citing patent infringement allegations, but Judge Lucy Koh said her California district court "currently lacks the jurisdiction" to grant one.

Judge Koh had told Apple in December that it wasn't getting a ban against Samsung, so the iPhone-maker went to the US Court of Appeals in Washington, which told the district judge to reconsider her decision.

Samsung then appealed against the appeals court's ruling, parking the case in Washington for the time being.

"A district court is without jurisdiction to grant injunctive relief that would alter the status quo while an appeal is pending," Koh said today.

Apple's motion for the early ban asked the court to "promptly" give it what it wanted "to protect Apple from the continuing irreparable harm that this court found five months ago was likely to occur in the absence of such relief".

"Each day that Samsung continues to sell its infringing Tab 10.1 causes additional harm to Apple through design dilution, lost sales, lost market share, and lost future sales of tag-along products. This court should enter a preliminary injunction forthwith to protect Apple from additional irreparable harm," Apple demanded.

The iPad maker tried to overcome the issue of jurisdiction by citing a case in which a district court did grant a preliminary injunction because it was trying to protect the public from harmful misbranded drugs.

Judge Koh said that the argument was a bit of a reach.

"Here… there is no broad public interest such as protecting the public from harmful drugs that forms the basis of the status quo that must be preserved," her ruling said.

"Moreover, the federal circuit did not reverse the preliminary injunction order and direct this court to issue an injunction, but instead vacated the order with respect to the D’889 Patent and remanded the case for further proceedings."

She did, however, say that Apple was free to file again for the ban once things were tidied up at the appeals court and all was ruled in its favour, so that the injunction could get slapped on quickly. ®